


A Place to Call Home

by Knitwritezombie (Missa_G)



Series: A Safe Place to Hide [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Child Neglect, Deaf Clint Barton, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Team as Family, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-24
Updated: 2014-06-24
Packaged: 2018-02-06 00:06:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1837108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missa_G/pseuds/Knitwritezombie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While fighting something that looks suspiciously like dragons, Clint Barton, Avenger, finds himself transported back to 1983. When he makes it home again, he finds out that kid-him made quite an impact.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> While this fic contains nothing graphic, it does have some references to child abuse/neglect. Please read with your own mental health in mind.
> 
> Thanks to [katherine_tag](http://archiveofourown.org/users/katherine_tag/pseuds/katherine_tag) for the beta.

“Fucking…seriously, Sitwell? Dragons?” Barton said over the comms as he stared down at the battle on the ground, pulling an arrow from his quiver. “Iron Man, on your six. Widow, your three,” he called out as he loosed the arrow at the dragon about to pounce on Captain America. 

Hulk gave a roar as Thor summoned a lightning strike to take out one of the medium sized animals. 

“Oh, shit,” he said. “Guys, be advised, the big ones breathe fire,” he called, nocking another arrow and letting it fly. They’d been on scene for half an hour, but that was the first sign that the dragons could roast them. Then again, that was the first one bigger than a bicycle Clint had seen.

“Define ‘big,’ Hawkeye,” Cap responded. 

“Big means anything larger than an SUV, Cap,” he called back down, taking out another dragon. “Thor, coming up on your ten o’clock,” he called.

Rather than responding vocally, Thor just spun and smashed the thing with his hammer. 

“Avengers, agents report the portal has closed and-“

Sitwell’s voice cut off abruptly as Clint’s world tilted dizzyingly. He shut his eyes, trying to fend off the nausea as the world got suddenly quiet. The sound in his ear was not the silence that meant a quiet but active comm, but rather a non-functioning comm. “Shit,” he muttered, opening his eyes to darkness. 

He glanced around quickly, taking in the girls’ clothes and the yelling drifting up from the floor below. “Holy fuck,” he breathed. He knew this space; this was the Grady girls’ closet, where he had hid whenever he thought he could get away with it. He still held his bow in his hand and was in his field uniform, two empty quivers and a half-full one in his possession. 

“Barton! Where’s your good for nothing brother?” Mrs. Grady bellowed downstairs.

“How the fuck should I know,” Barney responded in a growl. 

“Watch your mouth, you little shit,” their foster mother said.

“Time to go,” Clint muttered. He peeked around the edge of the door frame to make sure the room was still empty (he remembered never getting caught up here) and bolted for the window after securing his bow across his back. The sash slid up easily and he went out and up to the roof, thankful again that the Grady house backed up to the park (as a kid it meant he had somewhere to go outside; as an adult agent of SHIELD it meant he had an easy means of egress). 

It was nearly dark, so he crouched behind the chimney to wait for full dark to make his escape into the park. His muscles were beginning to tighten up as they cooled from his exertion during the battle, but he couldn’t risk moving too much and being caught on the roof, so he went through a set of isometrics he’d learned while in the Army, trying to keep himself loose and ready to move. 

He waited for a full ten minutes after it got completely dark before he stepped to the edge of the roof and lowered himself down, level by level. When he hit the ground, he jogged off toward the park, easily hopping over the chain-link fence that established the border between it and the Gradys’ backyard.

Clint jogged for a few minutes until he was well clear of sight lines of the average person. He slowed to a walk until he found a secluded place under a tree hidden between a couple of bushes. He sat and took stock, pulling things from his pockets.

“Okay,” he muttered to himself, surveying the assets at his disposal and going over what little intel he had. It was 1983, and he was in Waverly, Iowa, based on what he remembered. He couldn’t be sure of the exact date, as he’d hidden in that closet several times before he and Barney had been moved back to the group home after Mr. Grady had been caught with drugs and Joey’s social worker had gotten suspicious about the bruises. So, 1983. Iowa.

His assets included his bow and arrows, field uniform and boots and sunglasses; he also had three knives, one loaded handgun with two spare clips, two spare bow strings, a small fletching kit, his regular hearing aids, his field hearing aids (which he took a moment to swap out to spare the batteries on the higher-tech ones Stark built for him to use in the field), a phone with no signal (wifi or cellular), two protein bars, three-hundred dollars in unusable cash (new bills, thanks US Government), and his CA issued driver’s license, besides his SHIELD ID. His dog tags would be of no help, and he shoved anything with his identity on it in the zippered pocket concealed by the gun holster. 

“Okay,” he said to himself, starting to tuck everything away. “First order of business, hide the gear,” he said. He needed to ditch the bow and quivers until he could find a safe house. 

Safe house. Shit. He _could_ try to contact SHIELD. At the minimum they’d lock him up for being crazy. If he got lucky, they’d believe him and help him out. He hoped back home that Natasha and Sitwell were keeping Phil up to speed.

He still needed to find some civilian gear until he could figure out how to reach SHIELD. Clint spotted a maintenance shed and made his way to it. He picked the lock and buried his weapons under a pile of tools that looked like they hadn’t been moved in a decade. 

“Aha,” he breathed, finding a grimy coverall. It was disgusting, but it would at least cover up his tac suit and provide him with a better chance of blending in. He pulled it on over his clothes and even though he intended to come back as soon as he could, jammed the lock so no one else could get in and chance upon his gear.

As he emerged from the park, he affected a limp and hunched back, to look slightly less like a total creeper prowling the streets in dirty work clothes and more like a hard working creeper out for errands after work. 

Waverly, Iowa may have been the epitome of small town USA, which meant that, despite the recession that struck much of the country in Clint’s youth, the town banded together. Main street was still lit up in the evenings and families wandered up and down, looking in store fronts before or after dinner at one of the three restaurants in the downtown area. Sadly, this made it easy enough for Clint to “bump into” people and lift their wallets. It wasn’t a skill he was particularly proud of, developed in the circus, but he still had the touch, honed by years of extra training in espionage by SHIELD after he’d been plucked from his military service.

And of course, he’d get the wallets and credit cards back to his victims; he just needed the cash.

He made his way to the second hand shop, maintaining the scant disguise that he hoped would make him forgettable. He grabbed up the bare essentials including a pair of jeans, a couple tee-shirts, a sweatshirt, and a rather beat up duffel bag that would hold his gear. He figured he’d be able to use his boots without drawing too much attention. 

Clint paid, gesturing to the clerk like he couldn’t hear (and therefore wouldn’t have to speak) and escaped back to the park with his purchases. He changed in the privacy of the shed, shoving everything into the duffel bag before making his way back downtown to the all night diner.

He scoped it out as he entered, swept by an incredible feeling of déjà vu. He and Barney used to sneak down there for pie or hot chocolate when they could scrape together enough money. He found the payphone where he remembered, and slid into a booth near the back with good sightlines of the door. 

“What can I get you, hon?” a large woman asked. Her nametag read “Beth,” and she wore glasses on a chain, a white apron covering her jeans and t-shirt.

He glanced over the menu. “Pancakes, eggs, scrambled please, and bacon, extra crispy. And coffee.”

She tapped her pencil against her order pad. “You got it. Be right back with coffee. Cream and sugar?”

“Please,” Clint answered, smiling.

She nodded and moved off.

Clint sighed softly, nudging his bag a bit further under the table so it wouldn’t draw more attention, and turned his mind to how he was going to locate a SHIELD office while he was stuck in the middle of bumfuck nowhere with no internet connection.

How the fuck did people find things before the internet?

Clint didn’t think the phone book would be much help; he doubted that there would be any SHIELD aliases listed in the local book (and he was 16 years too early to know any of them anyway). When he’d completed his training for SHIELD, they’d given him a phone number and passphrase to memorize if he were ever in need of extraction without secure communication back to his handler or cut off from his team. He supposed it wouldn’t hurt to try the number and see what happened. 

Once Beth had brought his coffee, he fixed it up the way he liked it (Phil always gave him shit for having coffee with his sugar, but since he’d mostly grown up drinking tea when he wanted something hot, he’d never really gotten used to the taste of it black, but loved the caffeine), and took it with him to the phone, keeping half an eye on his stuff as he dialed. 

“Strategic World Imports, how can I help you?” a voice responded.

Clint blinked. He hadn’t expected it to _work_. “Uh, yeah, I need to check on the status of an order?”

“Order number, sir?”

“Charlie Bravo niner niner Alpha eight two Papa Charlie Delta,” he reeled off. It was a simple code if you knew how to break it down.

“Could you repeat that, sir?” the probable junior agent on the other end of the line asked.

Clint did so.

“One moment, sir, while I transfer your call.”

Clint sipped at his coffee and watched the diner while he waited for the call to go through. 

“Who the fuck is this? That code doesn’t exist but meets our guidelines.” The voice on the line was male and gruff and utterly unfamiliar. 

“I’d rather not give my name on an open line,” Clint said, keeping his tone even. “But I’m in need of a safe house or extraction.”

Silence held for a moment. “I can’t just go around giving out intel like that over an unsecured line, whoever you are. But I can have agents to your location in about six hours,” the voice said.

“IDs?” Clint asked. 

“November Foxtrot six eight Alpha four seven Hotel Sierra Tango and Papa Charlie eight two Alpha six eight November Foxtrot Tango”

Clint’s breath caught. He _knew_ those codes. “Understood, sir,” he responded hoarsely. 

“Are you secure, Agent?” The voice had softened slightly, shifting into a handler concerned for the wellbeing of an agent under his supervision.

“Secure enough, sir,” Clint responded promptly. He wasn’t being shot at, nor, did he think, was he in any immediate danger.

“Six hours, agent.” The line went dead.

Clint made his way back to the table, coffee forgotten in his hands.

Fury and Coulson were on their way.

**

After Clint finished his meal, he headed back out to find some way to occupy himself for a few hours; he couldn’t hang out in the diner without drawing suspicion to himself (he never thought he’d actively hope for one of those horrible hipster cafes with free wifi). Lacking other options, he made his way back to the park and locked himself in the maintenance shed to catch some sleep while he could. His phone didn’t have a signal, but the battery was still charged, so he set the alarm and made himself comfortable.

He woke with a start when the alarm sounded, taking a moment to glance around to confirm his location and security. “Right,” he muttered, scrubbing a hand over his face. By his internal clock, he still had a couple of hours until Fury and Coulson would arrive at the diner. He desperately wanted a shower, but he was hoping that they would believe him enough to set him up in a safe house in the area until, and he hoped this was happening, Tony and Bruce figured out a way to reverse whatever had happened.

And then the thought occurred to him; if he was here, was eight-year old him stuck with his team? “Oh, shit,” he breathed. While no one could accuse him of being completely trusting of strangers as an adult, kid-him had pretty much been terrified of adults, outside of his teachers at school (whom he still didn’t trust). His eight-year old self had to be fucking petrified. Clint hoped that Pepper was still in New York and that she would have the patience enough to deal with kid-him that would be needed (because the others would just freak him the fuck out). Natasha knew his past, but Clint knew that knowing where he’d come from would probably make her really uncomfortable, and she would probably make herself scarce, or keep an eye on him from a distance.

Clint gave himself a mental shake. He couldn’t waste too much energy on something he had no ability to change. He just had to hope that his team would be up to the challenge of a scared, traumatized kid with a penchant for tight dark places. _His_ priority was to lay low and survive until he made contact with Fury and Coulson and hope they had some better ideas on what he should do.

After gathering his things and re-locking the shed, trying to make it seem as if no one had been there, Clint started walking. It wasn’t likely he would find much open at the early hour, but he remembered there being a truck stop of sorts on the edge of town, where at the very least he’d be able to pick up a book or something. Plus, the walk would give him something to do; he’d always rather be moving. 

As he walked, his thoughts turned back to his eight-year old self and what he must be dealing with back in New York. Clint had established hiding places throughout the residential areas of the tower in the year that he’d been living there; everyone knew about a couple, including the one in the common room that Clint used when he wanted to be around the team but not part of them socially. Tony had given him crap for it, but Bruce had seemed to understand, and after a while, they’d all gotten used to it.

He hoped no one found out that he spent more nights on the mattress on the floor of his closet than he did in the bed in the large studio flat Stark had gifted him. Even as an adult, after bad days, he needed to feel closed in and secure in order to relax. 

So he knew that they would find him at least one place kid-him would feel safe, and Clint knew the kid would find a few more if he truly didn’t feel safe around them. The ones Clint set up were minimally stocked because Clint _knew_ he was safe in the tower and could therefore seek out food whenever he wanted. Kid-him wouldn’t, and he tried to remember what he had left where.

He gave himself another mental shake. He couldn’t worry about the kid from 3000 miles and 30 years away. He just had to have faith that the others had learned enough about him by now to treat the kid with care, and hope he didn’t return to New York with more mental scars than he already possessed because of what happened.

Clint came upon the “truck stop” and picked up a few things with his dwindling supply of stolen cash, including two trashy paperback novels (buy one get one) and a deck of cards, which would hopefully help keep him from going completely stir crazy.

As he made his way back to the diner, he passed the elementary school he had attended. He paused, letting the memories come. Most weren’t pleasant, of being bullied for being small, for being stupid, for getting free lunch. But there were a few good ones, like the birthday that the kid brought cupcakes, enough for everyone in the class, even Clint. Or the once a week they got to go to choir, and that one field trip to the planetarium and the other to the zoo, before one kid ran away on a trip and the group homes wouldn’t sign their permission slips anymore.

When he’d been a kid, Clint had often hoped something or someone would take him away from that place. “This isn’t exactly what I had in mind, kid,” he muttered as he turned away from the school and started walking again. He passed the abandoned building where he knew, in a back corner, would be a battered backpack that contained, among other things, a pair of socks, some food, and probably close to twenty dollars. Everything kid-him had been able to scrounge and hide from Barney, from the other older boys, from Mrs. Grady.

Maybe Clint would find something he could add to that bag before he left.

When he approached the diner he slowed his steps and carefully surveyed the area. He easily picked out the SHIELD sedan in the parking lot, but saw no overt signs of surveillance on the building.

Clint scanned the interior of the diner before going in. “Holy…” he whispered, staring. Sure, he’d seen pictures of Phil as a young man (Phil’s mom had _loved_ to trot out the baby pictures), but they had nothing on seeing Junior Agent Phillip J Coulson, looking uncomfortable in a suit and tie (and trying badly to hide it), sitting behind a cup of coffee in a diner booth. His dark hair (!) was slightly shaggy around his ears and Clint couldn’t help but gape just a little at the barely twenty-year old man who would become arguably the biggest badass (besides Fury himself) that Clint would work with. Clint didn’t see Fury, but he didn’t doubt for a second that he wasn’t being watched.

He stepped into the diner with his duffel bag over his shoulder and slid into the booth where Coulson sat, ignoring the way he felt twitchy at having his back to the door. “Agent Coulson,” he said quietly.

“Do I know you?” Coulson asked, his eyes widening a bit in surprise. So, he _hadn’t_ been born with that legendary unflappability. 

Clint shrugged. “Where’s your partner?”

Fury slid in next to Clint, effectively trapping him in the booth. Smart. “How about you tell us who the fuck you are, how the fuck you got a secure SHIELD number and used a correctly formatted code that doesn’t fucking exist,” he said, “and why the fuck my boss made me drive for six fucking hours to find out.”

Clint couldn’t help but grin. 

“Something funny?” Coulson asked blandly.

“Kinda,” Clint responded. “Look, it’s a long story. Can I at least get some coffee?”

Fury levelled a two-eyed stare at him for a moment then nodded, waving over the waitress. 

Once they all had coffee, Clint started talking.

“My name is Clinton Francis Barton, and I was recruited to SHIELD by Phillip Coulson in 1999 out of the Army. Yesterday, I was in New York, in 2013, fighting dragons with my team of super heroes when I found myself transported here, to one of my childhood homes.” He pulled his current IDs and dog tags from his pocket and laid them on the table. “I called the emergency number I was given as a probationary agent for backup, since I have no resources here. I’m hoping my team is working on a solution back in 2013, but in the meantime, I need to probably stay local and lay low.” He dipped into his other pocket and laid out his cash, which was pretty much the only evidence he had that he was telling the truth. 

“And who, exactly, is on this team to be working on this problem?” Fury asked, glancing down at the evidence then sliding it toward Coulson. Clint was only slightly surprised at the acceptance of his story. Weird shit was a common occurrence at SHIELD.

“Tony Stark and Bruce Banner,” Clint responded, noting the recognition in Fury’s gaze at the mention of Stark. Banner likely hadn’t made SHIELD’s radar yet. Clint knew that Fury had been tapped for SHIELD by Howard Stark, so he was at least passingly familiar with the younger Stark.

“And you think they’re going to be able to fix this?” Fury asked.

Clint shrugged. “I dunno, man. I’m just the guy that shoots things. But if anyone can figure it out, it’s them. Like I said, we were fighting dragons, and if I had to guess, I’d say that the two events were related. It wouldn’t be the strangest problem they’ve had to solve in the last year or so.”

Coulson looked up at him curiously from where he was studying Clint’s things on the table. “You _just_ shoot things.”

He couldn’t help but grin again. Coulson had always had far more confidence in him than anyone else. “Yeah, well, I see better from a distance,” he quipped dryly.

“So, what do you need from us?” Fury asked.

“Like I said, at the very least somewhere local to lay low,” Clint repeated, sitting back a bit, his coffee cup cradled between his hands. “Oh, and if you could return some wallets for me, that’d be great,” he admitted a bit sheepishly. “I had to get creative to stay under the radar last night. My field gear draws attention.”

Fury rolled his eyes but nodded. “Give Coulson what you need us to return. I’m gonna call it in and see if we have anything local. Stay put,” he warned.

Clint held his hands up in surrender. Once Fury slid out of the booth, Clint pulled his duffel bag up and passed the pilfered wallets over to Coulson who slipped them into his jacket pockets. 

“Have you eaten?” Coulson asked.

On cue, his stomach rumbled, and he grinned. “I could eat.”

Coulson waved the waitress back over and ordered for himself and Fury, then nodded at Clint, who ordered more pancakes with an omelet because although the only thing better than diner breakfast was diner burgers, Clint wasn’t in the mood for a burger.

Fury returned just as their food was being delivered .”Thanks, Cheese,” he said and Coulson nodded, digging into his own plate of pancakes. Fury dumped ketchup and hot sauce over his eggs. “Headquarters is seeing what we have out here. I don’t think we’ve had agents stationed in Iowa for awhile, if ever,” he said. “But it wouldn’t be a bad idea, so if we don’t have one, they’ll make one happen. In the meantime, I’m authorized to get you a hotel room and we’ll check back on you in a week. Eat up,” he said.

Clint spread the butter over the pancakes and ate them plain in between bites of his eggs. “What’s the catch?” he asked.

Fury glanced at him. “No catch. Normally, I’d leave you with Junior Agent Coulson as your babysitter, but we’re passing through.”

“Epic road trip, sir?” Clint asked.

“You know you probably outrank me, agent,” Fury said. “You don’t have to call me ‘sir.’”

“Not since I’ve known you, sir,” Clint responded slowly. He’d seen too many bad sci-fi movies to reveal too much. 

“Well, that’s comforting,” Fury muttered. “Hear that, Cheese?”

Coulson rolled his eyes. “Like there was any doubt. You’re impossible to kill, you bastard.”

Fury chuckled. “No road trip. We’re a mobile response team, if you can call us that. It’s more like we’re Coulson’s shakedown tour. Finding all the weird shit we can before we get permanently posted somewhere.”

Clint nodded. Phil had told him a bit about his early days in SHIELD partnered with Fury, how they’d basically lived out of the trunk of a sedan for a year as they drove around the country responding to non-critical items until they’d both ended up posted on the west coast and started making names for themselves as field agents. It had been partially to break in Coulson, who Fury had recruited straight out of high school, and partially as punishment for Fury after some fuckup that the director at the time had held him responsible for.

As they ate, Fury and Coulson described a couple of their weirder cases, only one of which Clint had already known about. That probably had more to do with Fury needing to go undercover as a drag queen than the mission itself; Clint resolved to ask Fury about it when he got back, just to watch his eye twitch.

Clint washed up while Coulson paid for their breakfast and met the two men at the car. Fury popped the trunk open and dug around for a moment, coming up with an envelope. 

“You know where the hotel is?” Fury asked.

“Grew up here, sir, I think I know where everything is,” Clint said, accepting the envelope of cash that Fury handed over. 

“HQ made you a reservation under the name of Barnes,” Fury explained. “The room is paid for for the week.”

“Do I have a cover, sir?” Clint asked, smirking.

“No. Try to stay out of trouble, Barton,” Fury advised, shaking his hand. 

“Not like I have much a choice, sir,” he said, smirking.

“Agent, if this asshole recruited you, than you know that’s not true,” Fury responded, hitching his thumb at Coulson in the driver’s seat. “Think of this as a vacation. HQ expects you to check-in daily. Two missed calls and someone’s coming after you,” he advised.

“Hopefully two missed calls means I’ve gone home,” Clint responded. He’d already told them that they could find kid-him at the Grady’s, which they should check if he dropped off the radar. “Thanks.”

“Take care of yourself, Agent Barton,” Coulson said.

Clint nodded. “You too, sir.” He hefted his bag and waited until they’d pulled away from the curb to start walking to the hotel. Fury had given him more than enough cash to cover expenses up to and including renting a car if he needed to, and if he was still stuck after a week, he needed to call in and make other arrangements.

He got checked in with no problem, and the first thing he did when he got to his room after quickly checking the door and windows was to strip down and take a long hot shower. He still felt grimy from the battle he’d been torn away from, and it felt nice to be clean. He took a nap, cleaned and checked his gear again, and watched some television.

By early afternoon, he was bored. He was not suited to inactivity.

The hotel wasn’t a total dump; it had a pool and gym, but Clint lacked anything remotely appropriate to wear to either. So, he headed back out into town.

As he walked, he made a mental list of things to pick up. Although he could have, he didn’t think he was going to be up to eating in public for all of his meals for the foreseeable future, so he made a short grocery list of things he could make without a kitchen and keep in the mini-fridge. He wanted sweats and running shoes so he could use the gym and something to swim in. And since he hadn’t been desperate enough the night before to search out underwear in the second hand store, he figured he’d splurge, since he was clothes shopping anyway.

Clint paused when he approached the library. He had memories of hiding in the library during hot summer days, escaping the humidity and heat and losing himself in the stories that the children’s librarian would read. The library was one place where he was always allowed to go freely, from the foster homes or the group homes; even though he rarely checked anything out for himself, he’d even had his own library card (it was one of a few precious mementos locked away in a safety deposit box). 

When he and Barney had run away to join the circus when he was twelve, Clint had barely a third grade reading level. The bearded lady had changed that, helping him to develop his reading skills and a love of books. Reading had been escape as life with Trickshot and the Swordsman got more difficult, and when Barney had put him in the hospital, and when he’d been in basic training, and on long ops with Coulson or in medical.

He didn’t go inside, but he knew it was an option if he started to go stir crazy (again).

Though he had a definite destination in mind, Clint let himself wander through town. He found places he remembered from his childhood, some with fondness (the bowling alley where one classmate had had a birthday party and invited Clint) and some with something he wouldn’t call terror (that was reserved for when he literally held someone’s life in his hands, like that time with Nat in Guatemala or Phil in Wisconsin), but was something made up of residual fear, anger, hate, and sadness, like the group home, or the alley where he’d watched his father beat up a man for owing him money.

He was tempted, for only a moment, to make his way to the butcher shop his father had owned and the apartment they lived in on the floor above, but quickly dismissed the idea. Even as a kid he’d never wanted to go back there; going back as an adult probably wouldn’t lead to anything good. Like him burning the place to the ground.

That probably wouldn’t help him to lay low. 

Once he completed his shopping, he made his way back to the hotel, changed, and went to swim laps in the otherwise empty pool.

**

Clint began each of the next few days the same way. He woke up, ate a slice of bread with peanut butter, went for a run, returned to the hotel to clean up, and went back to the diner for a more substantial breakfast while he read the paper. 

He decided that forced vacations kind of sucked. It felt a bit more like he was on medical leave, since he didn’t feel like he could or should leave the area, and Clint had never been good at medical leave. 

He spent a fair amount of time wondering what, if anything, he could do for his younger self while he was stuck. He’d seen far too many time-travel sci-fi movies and read too many books with dubious outcomes to try anything overt like threatening Mrs. Grady or arranging his own adoption or getting him a plane ticket to New York and finding him a place within one of the homes run by the Maria Stark Foundation. He was who he was because of who he had been and the things he’d done. Altering that wouldn’t end well, if anything he’d ever seen or read was to be at all believed.

Clint wasn’t even sure what was going to happen when Tony and Bruce got this situation resolved (he refused to consider the if). He had no idea how this was going to impact the trajectory of his future. Would kid-him be put back in the group home? He really hoped not; kids who attempted or were viewed as having attempted to run were treated practically as prisoners. Even kid-him had known when they’d landed at the Grady’s that his future lay in foster care, not adoption; he’d spent long enough in the system to know that he was too old, too troubled, with too many issues. To get labelled as a flight risk pretty much guaranteed that his life would be miserable. 

Having been through the process twice before, Clint knew that kid-his social worker, Katy, would let kid-him gather his personal things before he went back to the group home. So, maybe there was something he could do.

Kid-him had very few possessions that were his alone and nothing that had been bought new or with him in mind. Clint decided he could change that. 

That afternoon, he went back to the shops, and wandered through the kids sections until he found what he wanted. He bought a zip-up hoodie with oversized pockets in black and purple a couple of sizes bigger than he thought kid-him had been wearing at that point in his life. Hopefully, it would last him awhile. 

Clint saw any number of toys that kid-him would have liked, but he knew better than to even consider those; clothes were one thing, but toys that drew attention to him would have just gotten him beat up and the toy stolen. 

He could have purchased kid-him an entirely new wardrobe, but he wasn’t going to attempt sneaking into the Grady’s house to leave them when one kid was already missing. The hoodie he could leave in the kid’s hidden bag near the school. 

Clint picked up a few more things to hide in the bag while he was out: some hard candy that wouldn’t melt or freeze, several envelopes containing a couple dollar bills each, and some travel sized toiletries he could use or trade back in the group home.

While school security in the 80s was nothing compared to what Clint had had to work around as a SHIELD agent, he still waited until late to venture to the abandoned building where kid-him had his hidden stash. He knew exactly where to find the bag, and spent just a few minutes secreting his purchases inside before putting it back in precisely the same spot.

 

**

Clint had been stuck in 1983 for about a week, and he was out of clean clothes. True, he hadn’t done much but work out, wander around town, and sleep, but his three shirts were beginning to get a bit funky, even with showering after the gym and pool.

Lacking another option (because buying clean clothes was an extravagance he couldn’t give in to, even with the means), he dressed in his field gear but left his weapons in the bag as he bundled everything up to use the laundry facilities in the basement. He didn’t want to leave his weapons even under the bed in case housekeeping stumbled on them by accident. He had just stepped out of his room when the world tilted nauseatingly and he stumbled.

Strong arms caught him before he could fall. “I’ve got you,” Cap said, steering him toward a chair while the voices of the others washed over him. 

He was home.


	2. Chapter 2

“Clint!”

“Uh, hi, Pepper,” Clint said, feeling confused as she rushed up to hug him. He returned the hug, but his confusion only deepened when she kissed his cheek before pulling away. The smile she gave him was watery as she took his hand and held it for a moment before she stepped away.

Clint glanced quickly around the room, taking in the faces. Bruce and Tony were chattering together excitedly while Thor stood by, arms crossed over his chest as he beamed his bright smile at the room in general. Natasha slipped in as he took quick visual stock. He caught her eye.

 _OK_ she signed, raising her eyebrow to make it a question.

Clint nodded. Natasha returned the nod and took up a station just inside the door.

“Report, Barton?” Steve asked, still crouched next to him.

“All good, Cap,” Clint answered. “It’s been a hell of a week, but no injuries to report from the battle or subsequent jaunt to 1983.”

“So you did swap places?” Tony asked, looking slightly manic. 

Clint nodded as he answered. “Got dumped in the closet at one of my old foster homes,” he explained.

“Yeah, we heard about the Gradys,” Bruce said dryly. 

“And then had to explain to Thor why he couldn’t hunt Mrs. Grady down and rip her arms off,” Tony said, with as much tact as normal.

“Young ones are to be cherished,” Thor responded. “Not mistreated by those who should care for them.”

“We don’t disagree, buddy,” Tony answered. “We just have these things called laws.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered anyway,” Clint responded, accepting the bottle of water Steve handed him. “She died about twenty years ago.”

“I hope it was a painful passing,” Thor muttered, as angry and vengeful as Clint had ever heard him. “But I am glad you are returned, friend,” he said more brightly.

“So, uh,” Clint started, scrubbing his hands over his face. “I did a couple of things that should have created some new memories, but I don’t have them. Nothing bad,” he said in a rush, catching the looks from his team. “Just…gifts. To kid-me, where I knew kid-me would find them.”

“Oh, right. We were able to drop him right back in the moment you were swapped, so anything you did while you were there never happened. Kind of. Mostly.” Tony explained, waving his hands around. 

“So he won’t remember anything of his time here,” Clint said observationally.

Bruce nodded. “It’ll be like he was never gone.”

Clint let out a slow breath. “Good.”

“Good? Come on, birdbrain, why shouldn’t a kid remember hanging out in a place as awesome as this?” Tony protested.

“Because his life would have been hell if he’d really been missing for a week and unable to make anyone believe why,” Bruce said quietly.

Clint remembered that Bruce had done some time in the system after his father had killed his mother. “Things were bad enough, but kids who had been labelled as runaways were treated like prisoners,” Clint said. “He would have been sent back to the group home, accompanied to and from school by an adult, which would make him a target of resentment for the staff and a target to bullies from the kids. So despite how horrible things were for him – me – at the Grady’s, it would have been far worse to have him remember but have a week unaccounted for.”

“He said he didn’t want to go, but knew he had to,” Pepper said quietly, leaning against Tony. Tony draped an arm over her shoulders. 

Clint cleared his throat. “If I know you guys at all, you gave kid-me the first home he’d had in a really long time. It would be hard to leave that behind, knowing what he was going back to.”

“He didn’t want us to be sad,” Steve said. “It was almost like he couldn’t understand why we were sad to see him go.”

Clint rose from the chair Steve had deposited him in and stretched. “The Gradys’ was the third foster home I’d been in in two years, with three group homes in between,” he said. “By that point in my life, nearly every adult I had encountered had told me I was worthless, unwanted, and would never amount to anything. It seemed that everyone had been glad to see the back of me, so he probably _couldn’t_ understand why you would be sad to see him go. In his – my – mind, he was making your life more complicated and things would be better if you had your Clint – me – back,” he explained, trying to make sense for the others of how his brain (still) worked sometimes. 

Tony stared at him for a moment. “Barton, that explains a disturbing amount of your pathology,” he said slowly.

Clint shrugged. “Between my own parents, foster homes and group homes, and an apprenticeship in the circus, I spent close to twenty years hearing that I wasn’t worth the air I breathed. Most of my life has been spent proving that I was worth having around by being the best I could possibly be, making myself indispensable. In the circus that meant doing anything they needed me to do, from mucking out the animal stalls, to climbing the rigging to fix something. After I was apprenticed it became about pushing myself harder and further so I had new skills for the act. Then the military, and then SHIELD. My whole life has been spent trying to prove people wrong, that I was worth something. Eight-year-old me hadn’t figured that out yet; he still believed that the adults in his life were right.”

“Clinton,” Thor said somberly, and Clint looked his way. “You do not still feel this way?” he asked, his voice a quiet rumble.

“Sometimes,” Clint admitted with a wry smile. “But not to the extent I did as a kid. Just enough to know that I have to work to keep my place, especially as more and more people with extraordinary skills are becoming known. And seeing how I’ve only got maybe 10 useful years left in me,” he said casually. He knew his time as a field agent was limited. He’d been too hard on his body over the years. It was only a matter of time before he faced a major injury he wouldn’t be able to come back from and would face retirement or a desk job within SHIELD. 

Everyone except Natasha and Steve looked slightly horrified at his bluntness. 

“Clint, that’s…” Pepper started.

Clint shrugged again. “It’s reality, Pepper. I’m a soldier. My body is only going to hold up for so long after the abuse I’ve put it through over the years.”

“Okay, but so you know?” Tony said, “you have a job with Stark Industries for life. Best medical care money can buy. And what the hell are you all still doing down here? Get out, I have work to do,” he said in his normal abrasive way, which Clint knew was Tony’s way of diffusing a situation. “Seriously, go. Shoo. We’ll have dinner tonight. JARVIS, remind me.”

“Of course, Sir,” JARVIS responded dryly. 

Natasha slipped out first, giving Clint another quick once over; he knew she’d be by his room once she felt he’d had enough time to get cleaned up. Thor clapped him on the shoulder as he passed, as did Steve. Pepper squeezed his arm and stepped out of the room. 

“Why are you still here, birdbrain? We have work to do,” Stark said, not looking up. 

Bruce rolled his eyes. “Tony…”

“I just wanted to say thanks,” Clint said, smirking at Bruce. “For getting me back.”

Tony waved his hand absently. “Yeah, yeah, go away.”

Clint matched Bruce’s eye roll and left. He headed for his room to clean up. He hadn’t showered at the hotel, not wanting to get clean only to put on dirty clothes. His bed looked untouched from the mess he’d left it, but there were a few dirty glasses in the sink, with one of the kitchen chairs propped against the cabinets. Clint smiled wryly; he’d been a short kid. 

He had a glass of water and a yogurt while he combed through a weeks’ worth of email, which was mostly junk in his private accounts, since SHIELD would have held access to his account while he was compromised.

After soaking up the endless hot water for an obscene amount of time, Clint dressed in flannel pants and a t-shirt, sent a message to Fury and Sitwell that he was back (and getting one back from Sitwell informing him he was off duty for the next 48-hours and was expected at Medical in the morning), and flopped onto his threadbare couch, cell phone still in hand.

He didn’t bother getting up at the knock at the door, and a moment later, Natasha came into his studio apartment, dressed in yoga pants and a large hoodie, her hair tied back in a messy bun. She joined him on the couch and rested her head against his shoulder and he leaned his cheek against her red curls. “Are you really okay?”

He shrugged the shoulder she wasn’t using as a pillow. “It’s weird, having two sets of memories from the same place,” he said. “And I kind of wish I’d been able to do more to help kid-me while I was there…”

“Even though you know it’s for the best that nothing has changed?” Natasha asked.

“Yeah,” Clint said. “I tried to find ways to help kid-me that wouldn’t disrupt the time stream or cause massive problems in the future, because I’ve seen _Back to the Future_ and _Terminator_ ; I bought a hoodie and left cash and candy in a hiding spot, and it didn’t do one damn bit of good. Y’know, I thought about paying my foster mom at the time a visit and giving her a good beating in retaliation for everything she did to me and the other kids. I thought about visiting the butcher shop and didn’t because I was afraid I would torch it. And I _could have_ because it turns out it wouldn’t have made one damn bit of difference.”

“Would it have made you feel any better?” Natasha asked quietly.

Clint sighed. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “It just sucks to know that what little I did never actually happened. I had so little as a kid, that I thought if I just did something small, it would make a huge impact on kid-me’s self-esteem, give him some kind of hope and knowledge that someone was looking out for him, but not, y’know, change things so that Stark ended up president or something.”

“God help us all,” she said with a smile. “I know you’re upset that you weren’t able to make even a small difference. But, think about how those experiences made you the person you are and how they prepared you to face the things you’ve seen while on active duty both in the Army and with SHIELD. Would those small things have made any kind of difference?” 

Clint thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Probably not. The hoodie would have been stolen by a bigger kid. The staff at the home would have taken everything else if it wasn’t hidden well. So it could have made things worse, rather than better.”

“So even though you had no idea it would work out this way, it’s still for the best,” Natasha said gently. 

“Yeah,” Clint said with a sigh. “It just….it burns. But how was kid-me?”

“I didn’t spend much time with him,” Natasha admitted. “I just…I didn’t know how to deal with that. He was so small and so hurt, and so _open_ about it,” she explained.

“I hadn’t learned to hide yet,” Clint said. “That didn’t come until I was with the circus.”

“He was terrified at first, but latched onto Bruce and Pepper pretty quickly. Pepper said the first time he saw her he thought she was his mom,” she said softly.

Clint thought back to hazy memories of his early childhood. “Yeah, I can see that, I think.”

“I think it helped that they didn’t order kid-you around and didn’t force kid-you out of a hiding space. Fair warning; Tony knows you sleep in the closet now because he put the kid to bed last night.”

“Damn,” Clint swore, but without much heat. He could deal with whatever teasing the engineer came up with. But it made sense. The bed was huge and out in the open and adult-him sometimes had trouble feeling exposed when he slept in it. “But I – he – was okay?”

“Yeah,” Natasha answered. “Pepper gave him that horrible self-decorated tumbler of yours,” she teased, jabbing him in the ribs with her elbow, “which helped him see that we were who we were claiming to be since it had his – your- name on it. He spent a lot of the first couple days in the cubby in the common room, but as JARVIS wouldn’t tell anyone anything other than you were safe, he felt comfortable enough to come out. He cooked and colored with Bruce and played games with Thor.”

Clint let out a slow breath. “I was kinda worried. We’re not generally known for our…”

“Patience and ability to look after a child,” Natasha finished with a grin. “Why do you think I kept watch more than interacting?” she asked, rhetorically. She twined their fingers together. “He – you – was okay. The most outrageous thing Tony bought him was the 128 box of crayons and a stack of coloring books. He drank all the orange juice he wanted, ate pancakes without syrup with his fingers, and figured out Angry Birds in a matter of minutes even though he didn’t know what a computer was.”

“So absolutely nothing changed,” Clint said lightly.

“Pretty much,” Natasha agreed. “I’m glad you’re home,” she said after a pause. 

“Me too,” Clint answered. 

The remained curled up together on the sofa for a few more moments. Natasha gave Clint a nudge in the ribs and rose, wandering into the kitchen. Clint grabbed his tablet while he listened to Natasha rattle around the kitchen making tea. 

“You have three new messages waiting from Sir,” JARVIS said as Natasha walked through with mugs. 

“So much for thinking that he was giving me time and space,” Clint grumbled, accepting the purple glass tumbler mug that Phil had bought for him after Clint had confessed his preference for tea over coffee. “What’s he want, JARVIS?”

“Sir has repeated his request that you and your ninja-assassin twin join everyone for dinner tonight,” JARVIS stated. “He has also forwarded plans for a new bed to your tablet, and wishes to discuss plans to get you involved with his mother’s foundation for children.”

Natasha smirked as she folded herself down beside him on the sofa, her own cup between her hands.

“Thanks, JARVIS,” Clint said.

“So, how was 1983?” Natasha asked.

“Boring,” Clint responded, “Though I found out why Fury buried that mission to Boca Raton from the early 80s,” he said. “Meeting super junior agent Coulson was a perk.”

“I know it happened, and I’ve seen evidence, but I still have a hard time picturing Coulson as a baby agent,” Tasha said with a grin.

Clint laughed. “Yup. More hair, not so great suit. Serious bro-ship already going with Fury…” he trailed off.

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” she quipped. “He had to have been, what, 20?”

“If that,” Clint said, taking a sip of his tea. “It was still him, though. They got me set up with a hotel and a stipend and had me checking in every day.”

“They?”

“Coulson and Fury,” Clint explained. “It was during the first year of their partnership.”

“That’s just weird,” Natasha said with a shake of her head. 

“Yeah,” Clint agreed. “Fury hadn’t lost his eye yet and somehow that was more terrifying,” he teased.

“I’m sure,” Tash responded dryly. “Come on, finish your tea, and lets go spar. Can’t have you going soft on me after a week away.”

**  
After another shower, Clint made his way to the common room, where he found Pepper curled up in a corner of the longest sofa, her hair pulled messily back from her face, bare feet peeking out from the bottom of black lounge pants, a magazine open on her lap and a deep, wide mug clutched between her manicured fingers. She didn’t appear to be reading the magazine; instead, she was staring off into space, occasionally sipping from her mug.

Clint detoured into the kitchen, making himself a cup of tea before joining her. “Pepper?” he asked quietly, not wanting to startle her. “Everything okay?” They weren’t especially close, what with her being with Tony and splitting her time between Malibu and New York running Stark Industries. 

Pepper turned and blinked up at him, smiling slowly. “Oh, Clint. I didn’t see you.”

He joined her on the couch, next to, but not close to her. He noticed that she hadn’t answered his question. “Are you alright?” he asked again.

“Yes. No. I don’t know,” she admitted with a soft, weak laugh, looking into her cup.

“You want to talk about it? I can take my ears out if you want,” he offered with a grin.

Pepper shook her head, one side of her mouth quirking up. “It’s okay.” She paused and took a deep breath. “I can’t have children.”

Clint waited patiently, sipping at his tea as he sensed that she was gathering her thoughts. 

“It was never anything I’d been worried about. I was in school, and then law school, and then I was working for SI, and then Tony’s PA, and then CEO, and it wasn’t anything I thought I wanted, and I _know_ Tony took himself out of contention for fatherhood quite some time ago…” she rambled to a pause. “But having a kid – having a younger version of you – scared and scarred and traumatized, and turning to _me_ of all people. And I was surprised that I liked it,” she said, her voice soft.

Clint waited again. He was good at waiting.

“But I think about the next time you get called out to assemble, and the risks that Tony takes every time he puts on the suit, and how much I _love_ my job, and I think about Tony growing up with nannies and Jarvis because his parents were too focused on their careers and foundations, and I just can’t fathom having a child to raise in this environment.” She stopped speaking and took a sip from her cup, going silent.

“But you want it?” Clint asked into the quiet.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “It was nice to be needed as something other than the CEO, Stark-wrangler, and cat-herder of Avengers Tower,” she said a bit wryly. “But I don’t know if it’s something I can do full time. Because I _like_ being all of those things.”

Clint raised an eyebrow at that declaration and Pepper grinned. “Yeah, I know what it sounds like,” she admitted. “I’ve always taken care of people, but it’s always been from a distance, kind of. Even as Tony’s PA, as much as I did, it was never anything super overt, because, all evidence to the contrary sometimes, he can take care of himself. I think that’s why I went to law school in the first place, and not something more hands on, like social work or medicine.”

“How about putting those cat-herder skills to work someplace else?” Clint said, developing an idea.

“We are not opening an animal shelter, Barton,” Tony said, passing through.

Clint rolled his eyes. “Not what I meant, Stark,” he called after the other man. “I was thinking more along the lines of being a Big Sister,” he said to Pepper. “I don’t know what the commitment is like, but it might be something workable into your schedule. I know that you and Tony still run the foundations his mom set up, but this would be a chance to work with kids who would really love to have someone in their life to look up to.”

“That’s…a really good idea,” Pepper said. “I’ll have to look into it. Thanks, Clint.”

“What are you thanking him for?” Tony asked, coming in and flopping down in one of the chairs, a bottle of water in his hand. 

“He’s going to help me sneak into your lab later and spray paint the roadster pink,” Pepper said, completely deadpan. 

Tony snorted. “I’d like to see you try.”

“Challenge accepted,” Clint responded brightly. “JARVIS said you had some plans you wanted to run by me?” he asked Tony. “I have a bed.”

“Which you apparently don’t sleep in,” Tony responded. “What the hell, Barton, you sleep in the closet?”

Clint shrugged off Pepper’s concerned noise. “Sometimes. Small tight spaces are safe,” he explained. 

Tony gave a fully body shudder at that; he did not have similar feelings after being held captive in Afghanistan. “Whatever. But seriously, we can work on something so that you don’t have to sleep in a nest on a mattress at the back of your closet. Oh, and additionally, I am _so_ hooking you up with my personal shopper. You have like three pairs of pants,” Stark observed.

“I don’t need clothes, Tony,” Clint tried to protest, but Tony waved him off. 

“You cannot live in training clothes and a uniform,” Tony rebutted.

“I beg to differ, as I have been doing it for more than 15 years,” Clint said. He hadn’t needed anything else in the Army, and when he went undercover, SHIELD supplied the necessary costumes.

“Whatever,” Tony said. “Beds. I have ideas, Barton. So many ideas.”

“Tony,” Clint tried, but Pepper cut him off.

“Tony,” she said softly.

Stark’s attention shifted almost comically quickly to Pepper. “Pepp?”

“Maybe you and Clint could work together to make the closet sleeping space more secure, like the cubby here,” she said with a wave of her hand, “since it’s a space he’s already comfortable in,” she suggested. 

_Thank you_ Clint mouthed at Pepper as Tony started tearing off on a tangent about bullet proof drywall before he bounced out of his chair, kissed Pepper on the cheek, and disappeared back toward the elevator. Clint let go a sigh of relief and Pepper laughed lightly. “Thanks for that,” he repeated.

She shrugged one shoulder. “It seemed like an easy and obvious compromise,” she said, her smile reaching her eyes. “How are _you_ doing, being back?”

Clint had a feeling he was going to get sick of that question pretty soon. “I’m okay. Just like coming back from any other SHIELD mission,” he said. “There’s actually paperwork I need to complete,” he said with a groan, making Pepper laugh again. “Seriously, I have to fill out expense paperwork along with a mission report, not to mention the report I owe for the action that called us out in the first place.”

Pepper reached over and patted his knee before she unfolded herself and rose from the couch. “I’m sure you’ll manage,” she mocked dryly. “Thanks, for the Big Sister suggestion. I’ll look into it.”

“You should,” Clint agreed. “I think, from what I’ve heard from Tasha so far, that you’ll be really good at mentoring a kid.”

Pepper smiled. “Thanks. I’ll see you at dinner,” she said before padding barefoot down the hall to the elevator.

Left alone, Clint reached for one of the ubiquitous StarkTablets and pulled up the paperwork he needed to submit to SHIELD.

In the relative safety of the Tower, Clint kept his hearing aids at a moderate volume, especially when he was alone or working on paperwork. Tony, Thor, and sometimes even Steve tended to be loud without realizing it and he had learned quickly after moving into the Tower that it was better to miss something from Bruce than flinch at the extreme volumes, and subsequently made him less jumpy (and less likely to throw things when startled).

So, he didn’t hear Bruce enter the common room, but looked up at the hand that waved in the edge of his peripheral vision (Bruce had had a deaf lab partner at one point). “Hey, Bruce. What’s up?” he asked, saving his work.

“I was wondering if you wanted to help me with dinner,” Bruce said, pulling off his glasses to clean them on the hem of his shirt.

“Sure,” he answered, setting the tablet aside. “What’s on the menu?”

“Steve wants mashed potatoes,” Bruce said. “Tony said he’d be happy with anything that wasn’t spaghetti.”

“Shit,” Clint said with a laugh, following Bruce into the kitchen. “How much pas-spaghetti did you guys eat in the last week?” He fought to keep the blush down as Bruce chuckled at his slip. He did reach up and toggle the volume on his hearing aids higher.

“Just twice,” Bruce answered. “But it’s what we had last night.” He crossed to the fridge and peered inside, studying the contents while Clint moved to the pantry to retrieve the 10-pound bag of potatoes to start peeling. “We can have chicken, meatloaf, or pork chops,” he said, looking up and turning toward Clint.

“All three,” they said together after a beat. Thor really liked roast chicken, Steve loved to make meatloaf sandwiches the next day, and the leftovers wouldn’t go to waste; even if the rest of them didn’t have appetites or metabolisms to rival Thor and Steve, there were still seven of them to feed, and with the exception of Tony and Thor, they all knew what it meant to be hungry – nothing went to waste.

Clint abandoned the potatoes on the counter to help Bruce pull things from the fridge. JARVIS would make a note of what they used and keep track for the next grocery delivery (other than stocking their own kitchens, none of them shopped much). Even though they cooked group meals only a couple of times a week, JARVIS had groceries delivered twice per week; Clint was glad he wasn’t footing the bill (and he wouldn’t blame Stark if he started charging them rent at some point). 

He and Bruce worked side by side prepping three whole chickens for roasting pans, stuffing the cavities with lemon, garlic, and thyme, and slathering the skin in olive oil and butter. “You doin’ okay, doc?” Clint asked as they worked. “Tasha said you and little-me hung out quite a bit.”

“He reminded me a lot of myself at that age,” Bruce said. “Small for his age, scared out of his mind, and utterly untrustful of everyone and everything around him.” He looked up from where he was massaging salt and pepper into the flesh of the chicken under the skin. “And let’s face it, as myself, I’m the least threatening person living here,” he said, somewhat self-deprecatingly.

“For the record doc, little-me woulda _loved_ the other guy,” Clint offered. “But, yeah, trying to get him – me – to trust Tony or Steve straight off wouldn’t have turned out well for anyone.”

Bruce smiled slightly. “Yeah, I can see that. But yeah, I’m okay. Just trying to get used to having things back to…well, normal doesn’t really seem like the right word…”

Clint laughed as he started working on dicing vegetables for the meatloaf. “Normal’s relative, doc.”

Bruce nodded his agreement. “True. And it’s not even the weirdest thing we’ve dealt with in the last year. Remember that week that Tony got hit with that thing that gave him aphasia and no one could understand a word he said?”

Clint laughed. “It wouldn’t have been so funny if he hadn’t so clearly gotten frustrated at his inability to communicate.” It had, actually, be kind of terrifying, since the aphasia had carried over into written speech as well, but months later, they were kind of able to laugh about it. “And that thing with Sitwell and the fish?”

“I thought we were all agreed we would never speak about that again, unless we were drunk or it was for blackmail purposes?” Bruce said, his eyes bright with laughter. 

Clint shrugged. “Still ranks higher than a time-travel portal on the weird-shit meter.”

“True,” Bruce agreed again, finishing up with the chickens and moving to the sink to wash his hands. “Where did you learn to cook, anyway? Little-you didn’t seem to have any knowledge.”

“I made friends with the cook in the circus, and some of the guys in my unit when I was deployed in the Army,” Clint said. “After the Gradys’, Barney and I went back to the group home until we ran away,” he said. “No one there really cared if we had any skills to look out for ourselves when we got out,” he said wryly. “But I learned some things from the cook, along with making myself useful as a step-and-fetch-it, which was a good way to make sure I got fed. Getting fed wasn’t such a concern in the Army, but I still hung out with some of the guys on my downtime and picked up some things. I had my own place on post and it was nice to not rely on ramen or frozen burritos,” he said, dropping diced veggies into the heated skillet on the stove. 

“No wonder you’re good with cooking for this crowd,” Bruce observed. “It’s nice having the help, anyway,” he said. 

Of the six or seven of them (if you counted Pepper, which Clint usually did), only Bruce, Clint, and Steve could really cook. Pepper and Natasha could handle anything with boiling water and a jar of sauce, but Tony and Thor were pretty much hopeless. “It’s relaxing,” Clint said, stirring his pan while Bruce moved on to peeling potatoes. “And sometimes it’s nice to do something constructive,” he said a bit more softly.

“Yes, it is,” Bruce agreed. “JARVIS, please preheat the oven.”

“Of course, Dr. Banner,” the AI responded. 

“Hey guys, can I help?” Steve asked as he stepped into the kitchen. 

Without a word, Bruce handed over the potato peeler and Steve pouted, making Clint laugh. “You’re the one that wanted mashed potatoes, Cap,” Clint said with a smile. 

“Hasn’t Stark invented something to make this easier yet?” Steve groused as he got to work.

“Don’t go giving him ideas,” Bruce groaned. “It would run on a nuclear reactor and have sentience.”

“And shoot lasers,” Clint chimed in. 

“All right, all right,” Steve said with a sigh as he got to work. “Clint, you get those reports done yet?”

“I’ll have ‘em done tonight,” he promised, working on the meat mixture for the meatloaf as Bruce got to work seasoning the pork chops. “Since no one lets me turn stuff in that says ‘I saw things. I shot at things.’ Think of all the time it would save.” He ducked a potato peel that was thrown his way while Bruce snickered. “Oh, like you can talk,” Clint said to him. “Don’t your reports generally consist of ‘Hulk smashed things. I woke up with no pants on.’?”

Bruce sniggered. “Yeah, but I’ve got a better excuse. You know you do far more than ‘see and shoot things.’ You figured out that jellyfish thing.”

“And the cybernetic chicken thing,” Steve added, brandishing the potato peeler. “Why does everything seem to involve animals of some kind?”

“Maybe the bad guys have some ethics after all that keeps them from experimenting on people?” Clint offered, and then mentally smacked himself in the forehead for proving Bruce’s point for him. “Shit.”

Bruce and Steve laughed.

“I told you that dumb carney hick persona would only get you so far,” Natasha said as she entered, going to the cabinet with the wine glasses and pulling down two as Pepper followed her in. Clint smacked her hand lightly as she fished a piece of carrot out of the pan. 

“But it’s served me too well in the past to let it go,” he said as she and Pepper took seats at the table, Pepper with a bottle of wine.

“I really don’t see how people even buy that,” Pepper said as she poured.

Clint shrugged as he shaped the meatloafs. “People see what they want to see. Like I said, it’s served me well in the past.” His part of dinner ready for the oven, he washed his hands, and fixed three glasses of iced tea for himself, Bruce, and Steve. Once he and Bruce had the chickens and meatloaf in the oven, they helped Steve getting the potatoes peeled and into pots on the stove. 

“Comrades!” Thor boomed, and Clint winced. He was _loud_. “May I assist in preparing this evening’s repast?”

“Come help me put a salad together,” Natasha said, getting up to get things from the fridge. It was about the only thing they could expect Thor to do without ruining it. “JARVIS, please remind Tony he wanted this dinner, we expect him to be here.”

“Indeed, Agent Romanoff. He says he will be there shortly.”

“Tell him I’m sending Pepper down if he’s not here in ten minutes,” Natasha threatened, piling vegetables into Thor’s waiting arms. 

JARVIS didn’t vocally respond, but they all knew the message had been delivered. 

Pepper joined Natasha and Thor at the counter preparing salad while Clint and Bruce worked on the pork chops and Steve made gravy for the potatoes. 

“Alright, alright, I tore myself away from very important work, and the food’s not even ready yet?” Tony blustered.

“Wash your hands and set the table, Tony,” Pepper said. 

“Why?” Tony asked.

“Because everyone else has helped with dinner,” Steve responded. 

Tony heaved a huge sigh that Clint thought was more of an act than anything, but moved to do as he was asked. He knew that Tony really liked when they got together for meals, probably because like the rest of them (except for maybe Pepper and Thor) he’d never really had a family to share in meals. Tony would bluster about it to anyone who would listen, but Clint knew that he really did care and did his best to look after everyone in his own way. 

With the table set and the salad made, everyone but Clint, Bruce, and Steve took seats at the table while they finished cooking. Conversation flowed through the kitchen and it wasn’t long before everything was laid out on the table and everyone found a seat. 

There was the usual free-for-all where they swapped serving dishes around and filled their plates. 

“So, I didn’t want to make a big deal out of anything,” Tony said, “but the kid said something that kind of stuck with me. He thanked us for giving you,” he said, pointing his fork at Clint “a family.”

It didn’t surprise Clint at all that kid-him had seen them that way. All he knew about families at that age had come from television. Though, really, he wasn’t wrong. In their own screwed up way, they were a family.

“So,” Tony continued. “Welcome back, Clint.”

The others echoed Tony’s sentiment. 

“Thanks, guys,” Clint said, feeling his ears heat. “It’s good to be home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I'm incredibly boring, but you can find me on tumblr: [knitwritezombie](http://knitwritezombie.tumblr.com)


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